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Saturday, October 1, 2011

In the oh so infamous words of Beyonce, "If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it." And guess what folks, he did!

Three weeks ago, on September 9th, we got hitched!

With the forecast predicting flash floods and torrential downpours the entire week leading up to the wedding, the executive decision was made the day before to move it all indoors. With rain clouds looming above threatening our day every step of the way, an insane amount of chaos, and tons of love we were united as one.

We had a small and intimate budget wedding with 40 of our closest friends and family. There was a lot of DIY involved with our wedding, which definitely helped keep the budget in check. I hope to one day share all my DIY projects with you on this blog. In the meantime, I'll just leave you wondering how we pulled it all off with just $6,000. Keep an eye out, I hope to post a budget breakdown one of these days.

Monday, August 8, 2011

(To maintain some semblance of privacy I've blurred out names and addresses)

In case you can't read the text....

Invitation:

He asked and she said yes...

Or was it the other way around?

However it happened we

BRIDES NAME

and

GROOMS NAME

Invite you to join us

as we get married

on Friday, September 9, 2011

at 2:00PM

CEREMONY VENUE NAME

CEREMONY VENUE ADDRESS

Reception to follow

RSVP Reply Card:

We look forward to celebrating with you!

Please reply by August 19, 2011

We have reserved ____ seats in your honor.

Name _____________________________

____ will dine, dance, and celebrate!

____ will miss out on all the fun!

Total number attending _____

Reception Card:

Following the ceremony

please join us for dinner and dancing

as the celebration continues

at 4:00PM

RECEPTION VENUE NAME

RECEPTION VENUE ADDRESS

I made the map myself by drawing it out on paper, scanning it, then touching it up heavily with paintshop. I also used some rubber stamps to jazz up the plain white envelopes.

Because I'm cool and printed on the back side of the cards:

I left the backside of the invitation blank and used the back side of the Reception Card and Map Poastcard to type up directions to both venues. The back of the RSVP Reply Card has instructions on how to submit your RSVP and what information you can find on our website.

I also ordered some return address labels to use on the outer envelope, but since I had so many leftover I also used them to address the RSVP Reply Card envelope. Because the back of the outer envelope looked so boring I also had some seals custom made that say "We're getting married! 09/09/11."

Because I went with a lightweight invitation suite I didn't have to shell out $.61 for the typical wedding invitation stamp. This baby only required a plain ol' first class stamp.... which I gussied up by using the "Garden of Love" first class stamp.

By this point you are probably wondering how much did these wonderfully beautiful invitations cost?? Not that much if you really want to know. If you're guessing $100, I'd say guess lower... like much lower.... like right under $60.

For a grand total of $59.76, I purchased the following:

50 - 6x9 invitations with white outer envelopes

50 - 5.5x4 RSVP Reply Cards with white envelopes

50 - 5.5x4 Reception Cards with white envelopes

100 - 4x6 postcard maps

140 - Return Address Labels

48 - Envelope Seals

postage

calligraphy Pen

rubber stamps

With the exception of the postage, calligraphy pen, and rubber stamps everything was purchased from Vistaprint. This was the beginning of my love affair with Vistaprint. I plan to dedicate a whole post to the incredibly awesome deals I found at Vistaprint.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

I just purchased my very first DSLR camera!! I'm so excited that I even sprung for 1 day shipping!

Please welcome to the world my new baby. My pride and joy. The fruit of my loins, er scratch that... let's just stick with pride and joy. The Canon EOS Rebel T3 is the most recent entry-level camera for beginners that Canon has come out with.

I only paid $172 out of pocket for this baby!! How? Back in January I joined a reward program called Swagbucks. I've mentioned Swagbucks before, but didn't really dive deep into what it's about.

Essentially you earn Swagbucks by using their search engine, completing special offers, watching videos, completing surveys, and so much more. You can then redeem these Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards.

The simplest way to earn is to install their toolbar onto your browser and use it to search, every once in a while you'll be rewarded with a couple of Swagbucks, usually on average between 7 to 11 points. You can earn a lot of Swagbucks by completing free Special Offers, most of the time it's as simple as submitting your email other times you have to click thru a bunch of offers to get the points. It's seriously addicting!!

I had $360 worth of Amazon gift cards to use towards my order. $125 of that came right from Swagbucks. The rest of the gift card balance was thanks to a $50 gift card I received as a graduation gift, $62 from a credit card reward program, $89 from Amazon's textbook buyback program, $20 LivingSocial Amazon gift card, and $27 from Coinstar redemptions.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A lot has happened since the last time I posted on this blog. I don't want to bore you so I'll give you a run down real fast.

Two bathrooms were remodeled. A used toilet sat in the kitchen for 2 months. Made our engagement official. Set the date. Lots of wedding planning.Traveled to Miami for a funeral. Sad face. Won free engagement photos. Finished nursing school.Graduated nursing school. Happy dance. Working on a resume. Blah face. Hosted our families for 2 weeks. Fiance broke my glasses with his foot. Angry face. Can't see well. Bought new glasses. Joined a gym. Went from a PC to a MAC. Confused face.

That about sums it up.

Here's a peak at our engagement pictures.

I was thinking of maybe incorporating the wedding planning into this blog. It's a little off topic, but a lot of it is DIY and will totally fit in to the do it cheap theme I've got going on. I haven't decided yet.

What do you think? Should I incorporate a few wedding posts into my blog?

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Saturday we laid the cement board and Sunday we began tiling. We tiled well into the late evening when we realized our neighbors might not enjoy the roar of the tile saw at 10pm. So she sits awaiting for the more technical cuts around the door to be cut.

I took this picture around midnight so the lighting sucked. I'm sure the fact that it's an iPhone picture also contributes to the suckiness in quality. I tend to drain and never charge the battery/spare batteries of both of my digital cameras. And that is so not a good representation of the tile color.

Next topic of business...

I don't know if you thrifty bloggers have already taken advantage of this deal... but Lowe's has a pretty sweet promotion going on right now, the Lowe's Tax Refund Card.

Essentially, you buy a Tax Refund Card with a starting amount between $500 - $4,000 and on March 18th Lowe's will credit 10% of the original card amount to your card. In my case I bought a $600 card, so on March 18th $60 will be credited to my card. It's not a trillion bucks, but it will at least buy me a couple gallons of paint. But if you happen to be the lucky owner of a 10% off coupon from Lowe's or Home Depot you can double your profit! (That was your cue to get a change of address packet from the post office)

If only I had known about this promotion 3 weeks ago, I could have banked some serious dough. By the time this promotion rolled around we had already dropped one thousand bones at Lowe's buying tiling supplies and 3 new toilets.

I have tons of projects in the works with none completed thanks to the insane amount of schoolwork and time I've had to dedicate to schooling this past week. C'est la vie!

Did you buy a Tax Refund Card? If so, what are you going to use it for?

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I found some more junk, but I had to practice self restraint. Really, what was I going to do with a landscape painting of trees for $3? Granted, it was an original canvas painting with no frame for CHEAP.... but come on... trees? My inner conscience keep screaming at me "that doesn't fit the decor in your house, Gaby!!" Alas, I surrendered and put it down.

So I was just checking my stat counter and saw hundreds of hits from Facebook and Twitter. My blog isn't even on Facebook or Twitter! I'm not even on Twitter! Facebook yes, but Twitter no. I started to search my referring links and found the answer! Amy from Mod Podge Rocks featured two of my Mod Podge projects (Cabinet Doors and Mosaic Wall Art) on Mod Podge Rock's Twitter and Facebook pages. Check them out here: Twitter and Facebook.

About This Blog

Two nerdy-twenty-something year old's are the proud homeowners of what was and might still be an outdated-thirty-something year old townhouse. Here we are with little skill and lots of dangerous tools to document the trials and tribulations of home ownership.